And yet they still somehow maintain this aura of being the 'good guys'...
No company on earth has ever been able to make a smartphone entirely themselves, and no company ever will, although i'd like to be proven wrong.
As one of the richest corporations on the planet which always smugly tells everyone how nice they are and how much they respect people?
Yes, fuck yes. They're not a mom and pop shop. They're a corporation that finds millions to lobby governments against making your electronics repairable. They can redirect those to paying the manufacturing workers directly.
Huh, they are richest because they are not swamped with mass manufacturing and all issues that come with it.
The supply chain is also important. One person who worked in Shenzhen commented that, as a manufacturer, if you suddenly discover you need a certain kind or size or shape or length of screw, you can have a shipment at your door the same day, because the factory that produces a thousand different kinds of screws is just down the road.
To move to the US, they'd either have to replicate most of that manufacturing in the US, which would take decades and be extremely expensive, or deal with a week of latency every time they need a new or different part as they get it shipped from China anyway, making most of this process moot.
Yes, Apple should do something about this issue, and yes it's horrible to imagine them profiting off this with their "nice guy" image, but keep in mind that if they did this and increased the cost of the iPhone, other companies wouldn't, and it would put Apple at a huge disadvantage.
One thing we've seen over the last century of western civilization is that cheaper wins over better. Cheaper toasters that don't last, cheaper fridges that break down after their three-year warranty is up, cheaper laptops that come infected with bloatware and adware. If Apple refused to manufacture in China because of forced labour issues, then they'd lose out on sales to companies who kept benefitting from it, because consumers, as a whole, just don't give a shit.
I mean, if anyone cared about what it takes to provide them with cheap products, they'd be enraged that Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world even though the workers that run his company are subsisting on food stamps and burnout quotas.
That said, Apple is working on moving production to India, and I'd wager that the more they can do that and expand their operations there, the less and less they'll deal with China for manufacturing, but right now no one who manufactures electronics in large volumes can do so without involving China.
In the meantime, they can work on cutting this supplier out of their supply chain; the article is talking about only one of their suppliers, though a long-term supplier, and not actually people working for Apple or manufacturing iPhones directly, so hopefully they can draw a line in the sand and force Lens to either stop using forced labour or lose the contracts.
Fingers crossed.
> It suggests that iPhone glass supplier Lens Technology has been using Muslim minority Uighurs, who were given the stark choice of working in the company’s plant or being sent to detention centers which have been likened to concentration camps
So, potentially, if the phones were made in the US they'd be like Ferraris? Very expensive and only a few made at a time?
Apple customers have made it very clear that as a whole, they are not price conscious. Better beats cheaper, or they’d be all using cheapo Android phones.
Apple has very high profit margins compared to their competitors in the same industries. Apple can pay their suppliers more, rather than driving them down to the bone, which of course results in workers being exploited.
Or they could be more transparent that the only thing that matters is the size of their profits, instead of cultivating a good guy corporate image, as the hypocrisy stinks.
Highly skilled forced labor?
Let's not kid ourselves - it's all about cost cutting. They're trying to diversify and move to another low wage country, India.
Not - I'm not saying that China or India lacks skilled labor, or highly paid experts. But that's not why companies like Apple are there. They're there for cheap labor, and close to non-existent labor protections. But China is starting to change, so Apple is looking for new places.
> Yes, Apple should do something about this issue, and yes it's horrible to imagine them profiting off this with their "nice guy" image, but keep in mind that if they did this and increased the cost of the iPhone, other companies wouldn't, and it would put Apple at a huge disadvantage.
It's like saying that Google and Facebook should continue to disregard privacy, because their huge margins relay on that?
I think it is partly. China in particular seems to have a depth, quality and volume of hardware engineering skills that isn't available anywhere else in the world. Maybe the US had this once, but as far as I can see: not anymore.
Everyone wants a bad guy here, and apples logo with the billions behind it enable people to easily assign blame to that logo (not that they shouldn’t). But what’s forgotten is the massively complex “stack”, if you will, that brings everything together. Just saying “oh this billion dollar company is terrible!” Is being lazy and doesn’t contribute to a solution, all it does it make people feel entitled and validated because it doesn’t take much real thought.
The real problem at root is human/consumer behavior. Turning a logo into a fitting evil character borrowed from childhood cartoon narratives is not real.
Thanks for taking the time to write this up.
Do not make the mistake of thinking everybody who criticises a company like apple is naive as to the complexities and difficulties around supply chains at scale. I certain don't.
Having literally worked for one of apple's suppliers who they bankrupted to bring the process in-house I have given this probably a lot more thought than you imagine.
They have been trying to vertically integrate all suppliers as much as humanly possible for reasons of control, margin and competitive advantage. This has been apple's approach for many years and they have been utterly ruthless in doing so.
If they had the will to start to take the steps to actually divest from a literally genocidal state, they could do it. They simply do not care.
The part I do agree with you on is that they also know their customers do not care, and consumer awareness and action is a key part of pushing back on this kind of thing.
But please do not absolve apple of guilt by waving your hands and saying the supply chain is too interdependent and complicated.
If they can take steps to fuck over suppliers for profit and control, they can take steps to avoid slave labour.
If the real problem is human/consumer behavior, then any real solution requires changing how humans/consumers behave.
A coordinated campaign to spoil good-will in any company that uses forced labor is an attempt at changing how humans/consumers behave, no?
But apple appear to, in the decades since the iPhone made them richer than many countries, have made zero effort whatsoever to address these issues.
Having worked at an apple supplier that they bankrupted in order to make the process entirely in-house (one of many they've done that to) I just do not buy that they could not have taken steps to divest. Some. Any.
Of course the issues are true of many other companies, but as I said in my original comment, the fact they portray some woke mentality (under which every single microscopic thing somebody does can be considered 'problematic') while continuing to take little to no action in divesting from a literally genocidal state which harvest organs says something about them.
The combination of their outrageous markups (which _could_ permit a more costly but more ethical supply chain) due to which they'd not have to increase prices (and thus making them one of the most able to actually divest like that), their utterly ruthless business practices and their woke and patronising pandering makes them a particularly egregious case, so in my opinion far worse than the likes of amazon, etc. (not discounting bad things they do, just a matter of perspective).
Having worked at a company that Apple bankrupted in order to bring their work in-house I respectfully disagree that they lack the will or ability to avoid complicity with a genocidal totalitarian state.
Pointing out that no company can make the entire smartphone by themselves is all well and good. The OP was applying that wisdom to the "woke" culture Cook is seeking to solidify within Apple.
It's just as unrealistic for Apple to be woke as it is for them to make the whole phone by themselves. They love existing under that banner, though, because it succeeds in tricking many people into believing they can use iPhones and avoid being hypocrites.
I'd honestly be far more wary about companies who doesn't broadcast anything, just to make whatever profit at whatever cost. Any Chinese phone brand right now (correct me if I'm wrong) or companies like Huawei or Lenovo, where, like it or not would have that approach to business possibly baked into their DNA.
And whose choice was that? Apple has chosen to do business with all of these companies and they have chosen to consistently do business in China even despite the long history of China's violations of human rights abuses. Of course Apple is responsible for their choices of who to do business with!
Apple absolutely has control over who they buy from in this regard. Failing their willingness to act the US federal government has the authority to enforce labor law parity with trading partners through trade negotiations, tariffs, and bans.
Yes absolutely. They do supply chain all day, every day: in order to keep high quality, they need to be in tight control. They're very, very good at outsourced manufacture or they wouldn't be a US$1T company.
Foxconn was only the first to reach our awareness but it seems there's many other vendors with dubious HR.
Wokeness, philanthropy, environmental consciousness, branding, origin story, etc.; all of these things are viewed favorably by the cultural mode. Therefore, you should expect capitalists to appropriate them to distract from, or justify, the profits they make and the concentrated power they enjoy as a result (i.e. labor exploitation, control over consumer choices, influence in the market, lobbying for legislation, dictating the terms of contracts with vendors)
Apple isn’t the problem, it’s behaving how it’s supposed to in the market capitalist system that currently dominates the world. This cruelty is inevitable in capitalism.
> The more likely case is that, there are a bunch of people who are unemployable having no skills or lack motivations to work or happen to be in miserable conditions (like the homeless in US) were forced (yes) to enter this kind of "de-radicalization camps", monitored (yes) and _given_ an opportunity to get employment (like an internship for students) and get _paid_ the market salary. Yes they were forced to have a job that they can potentially do (the work conditions are like other "normal" apple factory workers). If they decline, well they need to go back to the "school"..
This news makes it more likely to believe in this kind of thing.
> The more likely case is that, there are a bunch of people who are unemployable having no skills or lack motivations to work or happen to be in miserable conditions (like the homeless in US) were forced (yes) to enter this kind of "de-radicalization camps", monitored (yes) and _given_ an opportunity to get employment (like an internship for students) and get _paid_ the market salary. Yes they were forced to have a job that they can potentially do (the work conditions are like other "normal" apple factory workers). If they decline, well they need to go back to the "school"..
Unfortunately, the free flow of uncensored news has made you aware of something I don't want you to know.
These people are no help to themselves, and do not want to do what the government tells them to do, even though it would be greatly beneficial. They are monitored, of course, as all radicals should be. The US has no right to complain. After all, they also have useless, dirty homeless people, which are pretty much the same thing.. Furthermore, these prisoners are even paid for their work! What more do they want!?
If they decline, they should be sent back to their interment camps.
Let me share a bit more from my experience living in China for 20 years. In China, taking street people (mostly beggars or orphans who were used by gangs as pick-pockets or whatnot) into custody is systematic for as long as I can remember. (There's news that this system is to be abolished in 2021 by a new law amendment.) It's systematic as there are full-time employees who job is to do this. It is considered "help" by the general society (but there could be abuses by bad actors for sure), the system has good intentions. Because they are not criminals, it's not exactly like prison but it is true that they are taken by force to go through a "program" where they need to listen to propaganda, be educated or trained for a certain skills (mostly factory jobs such as making toys, shoes etc.) and be forced to work at a given place for a certain period. The system is not perfect, it is outright offensive to "individual freedom" (where you are "free" to be just like the US homeless drug addicts). But it is net positive for the society by sacrificing some of these people who are unwilling to go through it.